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Gardening for Profit
A Guide to the Successful Cultivation
of the Market and Family Garden
by
first published in 1866, reprinted from 1874 edition
Chapter IX
The Uses and Management of Cold Frames
We use cold frames for preserving Cauliflower, Cabbage and Lettuce plants
during the winter, and the forwarding of Lettuce and Cucumbers in spring
and summer.
To make the matter as clear as possible, we will suppose that the market
gardener, having five or six acres of land, has provided himself with
100 of 3 x 6 feet sashes. The Cauliflower, Cabbage, or Lettuce plants,
which they are intended to cover in winter, should be sown in the open
garden from the 10th to the 20th of September, and when of sufficient
size, which they will be in about a month from the time of sowing, they
must be replanted in the boxes or frames, to be covered by the sashes
as winter advances.
The boxes or frames we use, are simply two boards, running parallel,
and nailed to posts to secure them in line. The one for the back is ten
or twelve inches wide, and that for the front seven or eight inches, to
give the sashes, when placed upon them, pitch enough to carry off rain,
and to better catch the sun's rays. The length of the frame or box may
be regulated by the position in which it is placed; a convenient length
is fifty or sixty feet, requiring eighteen or twenty sashes.
Shelter from the north-west is of great importance, and if the ground
is not sheltered naturally, a board fence six feet in height is almost
indispensable. The sashes should face south or south-east. Each sash will
hold five hundred plants of Cabbage or Cauliflower, and about eight hundred
of Lettuce. These numbers will determine the proper distance apart, for
those who have not had experience. It should never be lost sight of, that
these plants are almost hardy, and consequently will stand severe freezing
without injury; but to insure this condition they must be treated as their
nature demands; that is, that in cold weather, and even in clear winter
days, when the thermometer marks 15 or 20 degrees in the shade, they must
be abundantly aired, either by tilting up the sash at the back, or better
still, when the day is mild, by stripping the sash clear off. By this
hardening process, there is no necessity for any other covering but the
sash. In our locality, we occasionally have the thermometer from 5° to
10° below zero for a day or two together, yet in all our time we have
never used mats, shutters, or any covering except the glass, and I do
not think we lose more than two per cent of our plants. some may think
that the raising of plants in this manner must involve considerable trouble,
but when they are informed that the Cabbage and Lettuce plants so raised
and planted out in March or April, not unfrequently bring a thousand dollars
per acre before the middle of July, giving us time to follow up with Celery
for a second crop, it will be seen that the practise is not unprofitable.
But we have not yet done with the use of the sashes; to make them still
available, spare boxes or frames must be made, in all respects similar
to those in use for the Cabbage plants. These frames should be covered
up during winter with straw or leaves in depth sufficient to keep the
ground from freezing, so that they may be got at and be in condition to
be planted with Lettuce by the end of February, or the first of March.
By this time the weather is always mild enough to allow the sashes to
be taken off from the Cabbage and Lettuce plants, and they are now transferred
to the spare frames to cover and forward the Lettuce. Under each sash
we plant fifty Lettuce plants, having the ground first well enriched by
digging in about three inches of well rotted manure. The management of
the Lettuce for heading is in all respects similar to that used in preserving
the plants in winter; the only thing to be attended to, being to give
abundance of air, and on the occasion of rain to remove the sashes entirely,
so that the ground may receive a good soaking, which will tend to promote
a more rapid and luxuriant growth.
The crop is fit for market in about six weeks from time of planting,
which is always two or three weeks sooner than that from open ground.
The average price of all planted is about $4 per hundred at wholesale,
so that again, with little trouble, our crop gives us $2 per sash in six
weeks.
I believe this second use of the sash is not practised outside of this
district, most gardeners having the opinion that the winter plants of
Caulilower, Cabbage, or Lettuce, would be injured by their complete exposure
to the weather at as early a date as the first of March. In fact, here
we have still a few old fogies among us, whose timidity or obstinacy in
this matter prevents them from making this use of their sashes, which
thereby causes them an annual loss of $2 per sash, and as some of them
have over a thousand sashes, the loss is of some magnitude.
In my own practice, I have made my sashes do double duty in this way
for fifteen years; the number when I first started being fifty, increasing
to the present time, when I have in use fifteen hundred sashes. Yet in
all that time I have only once got my plants (so exposed) injured, and
then only a limited number, which I had neglected to sufficiently harden
by airing.
We have still another use of the sashes to detail. Our Lettuce being
cut out by middle of May, we then plant five or six seeds of the Improved
white spine Cucumber, in the centre of each sash. At that season they
come up at once, protected by the covering at night. The sashes are left
on until the middle of June, when the crop begins to be sold. The management
of the Cucumber crop, as regards airing, is hardly different from that
of the Lettuce, except in its early stage of growth it requires to be
kept warmer; being a tropical plant, it is very impatient of being chilled,
but in warm days airing should never be neglected, as the concentration
of the sun's rays on the glass would raise the temperature to an extent
to injure, if not entirely destroy the crop. This third use of the sashes
I have never yet made so profitable as the second, although always sufficiently
so to make it well worth the labor.
There are a few men here who make a profitable business from the use
of sashes only, having no ground except that occupied by the frames. In
this way the winter crop of Cauliflower or Cabbage plants is sold at an
average of $3 per sash, in March or April; the Lettuce at $2 per sash
in May, and the Cucumbers at $1 per sash in June, making an average of
$6 per sash for the season; and it must be remembered that these are wholesale
prices, and that too, in the market of New York, where there is great
competition. There is no doubt, that in hundreds of cities and towns of
the Union, the same use of sashes would double or treble these results.
Cold frames are also used for sowing the seeds of Cabbage, Cauliflower,
and Lettuce, instead of hot-beds; if the frames are closely shut up and
covered at night by mats, the plants will be but little later than those
from the hot-beds, and are raised with far less trouble. In sections of
the country where these plants cannot be set out before May, it is useless
to raise them in hot-beds. On the other hand, in the Southern States,
where in the months of February and March there are no frosts, by adopting
the same care in covering up at night, the seeds of Tomatoes, Peppers,
and Egg plants, and the sprouts from Sweet Potatoes, can be forwarded
with much less trouble in the cold frames than in the hot-bed.
I am sometimes asked the question, "How much freezing and thawing plants
of Lettuce, Cabbages, etc., will stand without being destroyed." I have
always taken the ground that the freezing and thawing, instead of being
injurious, is a necessity for their safety. In doing so I know I run in
direct opposition to a large majority of my brethren, but the experience
of nearly a quarter of a century, yearly increasing in extent, confirms
me that I am correct, and I am further assured in my opinion by knowing
that there is not a market gardener in this vicinity but whose practice
in the management of cold-frames is the same as my own, though if the
question was asked some of them if thawing and freezing did not injure
plants, the answer might be in the affirmative, so universally has the
dogma been accepted.
Again: "How long can frozen plants be kept from the light under shutters?"—Much
would depend on atmospheric conditions. If the temperature ranged at night
from 25° to 32°—merely sufficient to mildly freeze the plants—
they might remain in good condition for four or five weeks, but if subjected
to a zero atmosphere, without change, as many days might prove injurious.
A very common practice with cold-frames in this vicinity is, if the plants
are frozen in the frames previous to a snow storm we allow them to be
covered up by the snow often for two or three weeks, provided that it
is deep enough to protect the plants from severe frosts, as in that condition
the plants, though excluded from light, are subjected only to a temperature
of from probably 25° to 32°, which simply keeps them dormant. But if,
on the other hand, the plants are not frozen when snow covers the glass,
it becomes necessary to remove the snow in three or four days after falling,
else the plants will become blanched, and
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